"Barack H. Obama is a landmark presidential figure as the first black, multiracial, multicultural president from Hawaii and the Pacific."

“When I did a study of all the coming-of-age movies that meant a lot to me, whether it was 'The Graduate' or 'Rebel Without a Cause' or 'Dead Poet's Society,' they all had that timeless feel. None of them were completely married to the details of their age. They felt timeless in their treatment of it. That's what made them resonate with me.”

“Watch for a wild boy of no particular clan, ready for anything, always armed. Prefers fighting to toil, drink to fighting, chasing women to booze or battle: may attempt all three concurrently.”

Source : Nelson Algren (2010). “A Walk On The Wild Side”, p.26, Canongate Books

“Civilization involves subjection of force to reason, and the agency of this subjection is law.”

“Our invisibility is the essence of our oppression. And until we eliminate that invisibility, people are going to be able to perpetuate the lies and myths about gay people.”

“Would-be novelists need to bring equal parts arrogance and ignorance to the task before them. The arrogance is almost self-explanatory. Walk into any bookstore or library, calculate how many lifetimes the average person would need to read all the fiction contained therein. To think that one has anything to contribute, to any genre or tradition, takes genuine hubris.”

“My grandfather was a most gifted person, and amongst his many qualities, one of them had always particularly impressed me. While the past was a book he had read and re-read may times, the future was just one more literary work of art into which he used to pour himself with deep thought and concentration. Innumerable people since his death have told me how he used to read in the future, and this certainly was one of his very great strengths.”

Source : "My Beloved Grandfather: A few words by Mowlana Hazar Imam, His Highness the Aga Khan IV". www.amaana.org. November 1977.

“To be clever in the afternoon argues that one is dining nowhere in the evening.”

“When I was sixteen, it was simple. Poetry existed; therefore it could be written; and nobody had told me — yet — the many, many reasons why it could not be written by me.”